Development is challenged by, at least until 2050, a strong population, more severe environmental strains, growing mobility, and dwindling energy resources. All these factors will lead to serious consequences for humankind. Inadequate agricultural resources, water supply and non renewable energy sources, epidemics, climate change, and natural disasters will further heavily impact human life. The European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) sheds a new light on threats, risks and sustainability by combining approaches from various disciplines. It analyzes what could be the contribution of space tools to predict, manage and mitigate those threats. It aims at demonstrating that space is not a niche but has become an overarching tool in solving today’s problems.

The Yearbook on Space Policy aims to be the reference publication analysing space policy developments. Each year it presents issues and trends in space policy and the space sector as a whole. Its scope is global and its perspective is European. The Yearbook also links space policy with other policy areas. It highlights specific events and issues, and provides useful insights, data and information on space activities. The Yearbook on Space Policy is edited by the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) based in Vienna, Austria. It combines in-house research and contributions of members of the European Space Policy Research and Academic Network (ESPRAN), coordinated by ESPI. The Yearbook is designed for government decision-makers and agencies, industry professionals, as well as the service sectors, researchers and scientists and the interested public.

Spaceflight is a rational undertaking, yet full of emotions. It is a dream of mankind and a multi-billion industry likewise. It is subject to a distinct branch of law – and moreover part of modern pop culture. In short: spaceflight is fascinating. “Outer Space in society, politics and law” is an inter-disciplinary approach to the understanding of modern space law. Technical, cultural and historical aspects lay the foundation for a sound comprehension why space law norms have been established and what they mean in practice. The reader will realize the impact space and spaceflight have on society – from Stonehenge to climate change. A new approach to presenting space law: comprehensive and illustrative. “We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. That's a clear prescription for disaster.” Carl Sagan

This chapter provides a guideline for managing third party risks generated by the launch of a space booster. First it defines the hazardous conditions necessary for risk to be present, exposure of people or assets to the hazards, and the vulnerability of people or assets to the hazardous conditions. This provides the structure for how to control risks. Commonly used risk measures are defined. The discussion then turns to the implementation of risk and hazard controls including defining exclusion regions based on prelaunch analyses to protect populations and defining real-time range safety systems for limiting the risk during an operation. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to the flight safety analysis process with an emphasis on debris risk analysis, and includes both highly simplified models for rapid risk estimation and more sophisticated models.

Geotechnical Safety and Risk IV contains the contributions presented at the 4th International Symposium on Geotechnical Safety and Risk (4th ISGSR, Hong Kong, 4-6 December 2013), which was organised under the auspices of the Geotechnical Safety Network (GEOSNet), TC304 on Engineering Practice of Risk Assessment and Management and TC205 on Safety an

As decision-makers apply digitalization in global cities to achieve their SDG goals, contributors from around the world here shed light on forthcoming developments in Smart Cities, and set out how to plan for increasingly rapid changes,